Alternative Media: BUST Magazine

“They have power over us and we have no power over them.” (hooks, 3)

As bell hooks writes in “Making Movie Magic”, where she discusses the direct influence films have on society and cultures.  However, the quote does not only apply to films, as hooks was in her writing, but can apply to all forms of media that we consume.  The media industry is an enormous umbrella which houses television, radio broadcast, print media, online media, etc.  It has long been noted that the media industry has not been kind to women.  Data from 2012 finds that men still outnumber women greatly across the board.  Out all of the men and women who work in journalism and mass communication, men outnumber women, 7 to 3.  This outnumber of men to women has been consistent through history, not just in the media industry.  

With mainstream media coming under fire, for the content that it being presented, it is not very difficult to find an alternative to those outlets. With the birth of the Internet, it has never been easier to obtain news, entertainment, and culture.  Consumers no longer have to rely on the mainstream media for content, independent media makers now have the tools to not only make their content, being able to easily publish and share with others. 

BUST magazine was founded in New York City in 1993, by Debbie Stoller, Laurie Henzel and Marcelle Karp.  The magazine was created out of frustration with magazines that were written for women at the time.  The goal of BUST “was to start a magazine that would be a real alternative to Vogue, Cosmo, Mademoiselle, and Glamour, something that was as fierce and as funny and as pro-female as the women we knew,” according to Stoller. BUST is still published to this day as a bi-monthly magazine with Stoller, and Henzel still very much involved as editors. Stoller felt that women who read magazines such as Cosmo, “always ended up feeling bad afterward. They support very stereotypical ideas about women.'' 

Homepage of BUST

BUST covers a wide range of topics such as the news, art, and fashion from an independent, third wave feminist perspective. The articles and columns featured and published in BUST are not the same typically found in other women’s magazines.  BUST is the magazine “for women to get something off their chest”, which allows women to submit their own content to the magazine with a chance to be published.  BUST presents some of the content that would be regularly found in other women’s magazine, but from a different angle. BUST looks at news and culture from a feminist point of view intended to empower women, not portraying women stereotypes as other women magazines.

Inside of BUST

 BUST magazine injected feminism to the newsstands and gave women a true alternative to the magazines that were available to them.  Vogue, Cosmo, Mademoiselle, Glamour are all owned and published by Conde Nast Publications, as BUST magazine was free from the shackles of a large media conglomerate.  Because of independent publications such as BUST, gives consumers another choice that is free from influence and control from advertisers, and corporate sponsors.  Mainstream media is indebted to their advertisers and sponsors, which affects the media and content they choose to make and produce, because they really don’t have many choices.

Despite the plethora of alternative media, very few find the success that BUST magazine was able to have. Mainstream media still is able to flourish because of the finances and budgets that are available at their disposal.  However, this can all be changed. 

By buying to the alternative media we can “stick it to the man.”  By making different choices and buying into alternative media, publications, such as Conde Nast, will begin to reevaluate themselves and change the content that they feature in their publications.  As bell hooks said about films, “they have power over and we have no power over them.”  This maybe true, but we can be the ones with the power and the influence.  We can change mainstream media and the content they provide by simply choosing alternative media, sharing them over social media.  

Bibliography
Hooks, Bell. "Making Movie Magic." Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies. New York, NY: Routledge, 1996. 1-9. Print.

Kuczynski, Alex. "The New Feminist Mystique; Variety of Brash Magazines Upset the Old Stereotypes." The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Sept. 2001 LINK

"Fit to Print: Bust Magazine, The Feminist Press & Feminism in Media." The Opinioness of the World. N.p., n.d. Web LINK

"Women's Media Center." Releases New Report on Status of Women in US Media. N.p., n.d. Web. LINK